Olympic Cities - Lessons Learned from Mega Event Politics by Greg Andranovich et al - Article Example

An essay comprising a critical review of the Olympic Cities Contents An essay comprising a critical review of the Olympic Cities Contents 2 Introduction 3 Reference 10 Bibliography 10 Introduction This essay presents a critical overview of academic journal article which is published in Journal of Urban Affairs which was researched by Greg Andranovich, Matthew J. Burbank and Charles H. Heying (2001) titled “Olympic Cities: Lessons Learned from Mega Event Politics”. The objective of the essay is to observe the relationship between resident’s attitudes towards Tourism and tourism development options. Methodology As part of the survey methodology different cities were selected where the event already been held. The survey was conducted on three cities which have experienced bidding as well as staging the Olympic game in areas such as Atlanta, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. The focus in mainly on the Olympics as it has become the mega event during the global economic competition. The survey is conducted only on US cities due to the political economy of the federal system. The American cities are in a unique position with regards to hosting large events such as Olympics. Mega events occur with multi-dimensional and multipurpose of the aspect. The events in each city are examined over three key stages which involves, bidding for the game, organising and post games legacy. The three cities differ in terms of size, political history, social consumption and economic base. Therefore by comparing the cities the main aim is to identify the features of relationship between consumption based economic development and mega event strategy in urban politics. The journal Olympic cities: Lessons learned from mega events, which aim to address the challenges and opportunities in hosting the Olympic Games and focusing on cities of Salt Lake City, Atlanta and Los Angeles. The focus is mainly on the adoption of strategy to conduct the mega event and the effect it had on urban policy. To begin with an overview of consumption on economic development has been discussed which had two dimensions which includes building convention centres and sports development. Comparative Analysis The comparatively analysis is done on three cities where Olympic was held. The three factors that was taken into consideration was bidding for the game, staging and finally Olympic legacies. As per the rules of IOC only cities are allowed to bid for the Olympics and host the event. In bidding process, Los Angeles bid was mainly initiated by a group named pro growth by business leaders and civic notables who were operating in the Southern California Committee for the Olympics games (SCCOG). The group rose about $158,000 funds in order to finance the bid activities. The SCCOG was established in the year 1939 after the city hosted the summer games. The country bided for the Olympic in order to bring back the games in Los Angeles. The main reason in order to get back the games were the chances for the city to display on a global stage, increase the opportunity for high revenue and the intangibles that was likely to enhance the current position of the city. For the president of SCCOG, John Argue the goal was to bring the games to the city at no cost to taxpayer. After winning the bid Los Angeles did not have any competition at the international level. In 1984 Los Angeles was the only viable choice to host the event of Olympics. Whereas unlike Loss Angeles, Atlanta did not6 have any organisation to initiate a bid for the Olympics. Although much of the initiative was taken by small group of lawyer and college football player named Billy Payne who represents the city as entrepreneur for Olympics. Only after the support for hosting the game was supported by Atlanta’s business and political elite, the city was able to bid for the Olympic. Atlanta was awarded the game in 1990 and it meant a lot for the city to host the event and what is meant to the residents of the city. Similar like Los Angles, the Salt Lake City had interest to host the Olympics since a long time. The city has already bid for the winter games and was able to bring success to the events. By the year 1988, the bidding process became much more sophisticated with campaigns conducted by local business leaders and also by political leaders in Salt Lake City. Therefore the bidding process in the three cities had two features in common; firstly the bidding for Olympics was a product of regimen politics. The main driving force was the business leaders and the political leaders. Second reason was the desire to modify the image of the city such as convention city or winter sports capital or world class city. Organising the event is one of the most complex tasks as it requires decision with regards to physical development, use of landscape and so on. The Los Angeles Organising Committee (LAOOC) under the president Peter Ueberroth. The Committee was given extra ordinary latitude in order to organise the games with less or limited involvement from the government. The committee had all the power to make its own decision and pursued the goal of hosting the game keeping the government, community groups and corporate sponsors at arm’s length. In case of Atlanta, the organisational choice was much more complex than Los Angeles; the members of the bid committee form a non profit organisation ACOG, the Atlanta committee for Olympic Games. After winning the bid the city realised that it did not have sufficient facilities needed to host for such a mega event. The Atlanta games therefore provided an opportunity to promote a development agenda. Out of the $1.58billion, about $517 was spent on construction and on new stadium. The Olympic legacy usually has the longest effect on the host city. The economic outcomes of the event pretend to be the most touted. The economic outcomes in the hosted cities such as Los Angeles increased about $9.6billion of tourism, about $225miilion was reported to be surplus, the construction of airport speeded up, sport facilities were upgraded; The political outcomes resulted in $145million tax revenues, cooperation between the interlocal and other factors. In Atlanta, the economic outcomes were about $650million invested in new construction, about $609million in federal funds, expansion in tourisms. The political outcomes resulted in such as creation of CODA and ANDP, nationalising of local politics and other such factors. In Salt Lake City, about $1.3billion in federal funds, $4.5billion in tourist, expanded the tourism business. And political outcomes resulted in IG lobbying capacity, $79.5million tax revenues and conflict over paying in venue communities. Relationship between resident’s attitude towards tourism and Tourism development The relationship between resident’s attitude towards tourism and its development options is extracted from different journal by Kathleen L Andereck and Christine A Vogt. This provides an example of the problem and a research is conducted on the attitudes of the resident with respect to tourism. The example is based on a recent study of Interior Columbia Basin of Washington and Oregon. About 145 communities were surveyed out of which 17% indicated that they were dependent on tourism and recreation and the next 11% were highly dependent. Therefore the study concluded that recreation and tourism plays an important role in interior Columbia Basin region. Thus the research problem of the study was to test the effect of resident’s attitude towards tourism on support of development. Most of the studies conducted on the topic revealed a positive result; it discovered one or more positive aspect or benefits and also negative aspect. The methods used for the survey was questionnaires. The remaining factors were partly dependent on the questions asked. Most of the studies revealed that the residents have positive attitudes towards tourism. The residents believed that tourist and other recreation activities bring benefits to the state in terms of economic, environmental and socio cultural aspect. The residents have generally reported to have a positive attitude towards tourism. But at the same time there were reports which stated that communities did not find any perceived benefits especially on items related to job quality, quality of life or standard and also improved roads and services. But on a general level, residents are not concerned about negative aspect of tourism and development. One thing that emerged as a concern was the impact of tourism in traffic. Studies reported the concern of resident with increase of vandalism, parking problem, and other such factors. According to the some author, they have reported that residents were negatively dispersed towards tourism. They highly disagreed that residents have positive impact and believed that tourism had negative impacts. Therefore the conclusion that can be derived is that residents in great diversity are positively disposed towards tourism. The residents do have a concern about the negative impacts. Thus research focused mainly on communities which have succeeded on the development of tourism are positively support the tourism and recreation aspects. Many authors have investigated the attitude of residents in general terms or with reference to a specific community, only few have concentrated on the relationship between the attitude of the resident and its support for tourism development. Authors like King, Pizam and Milman (1993) did find a relation between attitude and tourism. The studies tend to provide few limitations in support for relationship between attitude and tourism development. The difficulty was the vague opinion of all variables (Andereck & Vogt, 2000, p. 27-36). This study aimed to examine resident’s attitude towards the existing and also future development of tourism. The theories of social exchange along with destination life cycle model were particularly used to examine the impacts it had on tourism development. The residents of three rural communities were supportive towards tourism development and a little proof was found that suggests that the resident’s attitude proved to be negative with higher level of tourism. The above journal was compared with another journal which was researched by Kathleen L Andereck and Christine A Vogt. In this case different communities were assessed with the introduction of rural tourism program which was directed by Arizona council. In this case the communities were already a part of the pilot RTD program. Unlike the previous community stated above they run a risk in the methodology as the communities which were included in the survey were already a part of the survey thus making it obvious that they would support the development. But with the help of random sampling, the methodology could be made strong. In reference to the framework of social exchange, it was found out that individuals exchange and evaluate in relation to personal benefits and also associated to cost. The data collected for the study was through questionnaire. The questions tend to develop a reliability of RTD as the members involved would represent a favourable attitude but also had high chances of misleading the community. Apart from questionnaires the author had also used the likert type 5 point scale in order to measure the rate of response of the participants. Mail surveys were also used as a part of it strategy. The ongoing survey was also administrated also through interview. However in comparison to the above journals this one had major issues with regards to the methodology used. It was not suggested that the authors for the research on resident’s attitude should have adopted such type of qualitative approach in order to strengthen its methodology. Therefore other methods could have been better options for authors. Hence the methodology chosen was not appropriate. The questionnaires made for the survey was made available in Spanish targeting the communities with large Spanish population. Also the table which was used to represents the data was quite complex and at the same time difficult to understand and interpret. A simple and easy way to interpret the data was through mean scores or as response displayed as percentage would be preferred. The article offers a moderate investigation of resident’s attitude and the level of acceptability of RTD but the article is also not free from limitations. It was suggested that random sampling would have been proved to be a better option and would ensure a fair representation of the population. To conclude it can be said that the quality of the research conducted by the authors was good and makes a valuable contribution to the suggested topic. But there exists a few criticisms with respect to methodology adopted and the difference in result. Reference Andereck, K. L. & Vogt, C. A. (2000). The Relationship between Residents Attitudes towards Tourism and Tourism Development Options. [Pdf]. Available at: http://jtr.sagepub.com/content/51/1/50.abstract. [Accessed on February 15, 2012]. Bibliography Andereck, K. L. Valentine, K.M. & Knopf, R. C. (2005). Residents’ perceptions of community tourism impacts. [Online]. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738305000770. [Accessed on February 22, 2012]. Harrill, R. (2012). Residents’ Attitudes toward Tourism Development: a Literature Review with Implications for Tourism Planning. [Online]. Available at: http://jpl.sagepub.com/content/18/3/251.short. [Accessed on February 22, 2012]. Latkova, P. & Vogt, C. A. (2012). Residents’ Attitudes toward Existing and Future Tourism Development in Rural Communities. [Online]. Available at: http://jtr.sagepub.com/content/51/1/50.abstract. [Accessed on February 22, 2012]. Mason, P. & Cheyne, J. (2012). Residents’ attitudes to proposed tourism development. [Online]. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738399000845. [Accessed on February 22, 2012]. Nunkoo, R. & Ramkissoon, H. (2012). Residents’ Satisfaction With Community Attributes and Support for Tourism. [Online]. Available at: http://jht.sagepub.com/content/35/2/171.abstract. [Accessed on February 22, 2012]. Read More